Due process, as well as democratic values, are threatened in Bangladesh by the actions of state agencies seemingly determined to subvert for political purposes the inquiry into the events surrounding the birth of our nation. The wanton arrest of MP Salauddin Quader Chowdhury demonstrates the extent of the attrition of due process in Bangladesh.

Friday, December 24, 2010

DHAKA: Amnesty International on Thursday urged Bangladesh to investigate claims that a politician arrested as part of a war crimes probe has been tortured in custody.

Salauddin Quader Chowdhury, a key figure in the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, is accused of war crimes during the bloody nine-month liberation struggle against Pakistan in 1971.

Amnesty said the government should ‘immediately investigate allegations that... security forces have tortured Salauddin Quader Chowdhury during interrogations.’

Chowdhury may have been subjected to torture including ‘applying electrodes to his genitals, beating him, slitting his stomach with razors and twisting his toenails and fingernails with pliers,’ the rights group said. Chowdhury was arrested last Thursday and is likely to face charges brought by the war crimes tribunal.

The tribunal has said it has found evidence of Chowdhury committing genocide, rape, arson and looting during the war. ‘I saw my father yesterday and he has been badly tortured - he said the people who did this to him had a doctor with them, they had special equipment to torture him,’ Chowdhury’s son, Hummam Quader Chowdhury, told Thursday.

The tribunal was set up in March to try people suspected of atrocities during the campaign for independence from Pakistan led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Bangladesh’s founding father. afp